02 November 2006

Hardontherapy: Not What You Think

I checked my e-mail last night before I went to bed. Of the 30 or so messages I had, approximately half of them were spam related to Viagra or mortgages or the like. Lately the spam I get has become more crafty; it often appears to be from someone I know. The message will list my sister-in-law's name as the sender, for example, but have "ViaaaGRhaa" or somesuch for the title. Sneaky! And kind of scary.

One of my messages appeared to be from a good friend of my from grad school. But the title was "Hardontherapy." I clicked on it anyway, why I do not know. And I started to read the message, which really was from my friend, and started, "I don't know if you have considered using hardontherapy for John's cancer . . ."

Um, well.

Ahem.

That's a rather personal question, isn't it?

So I'm feeling kind of creeped out and I stop reading and then I look very carefully at the subject line of the message because you see I am a really fast and inaccurate reader and sometimes I need to see things a few times to get it.

It wasn't haRDontherapy, it was haDRontherapy. Turns out that hadrontherapy is a specialized kind of radiation therapy that uses protons to treat a variety of cancers. It's quite cutting edge, and it turns out that my friend's father is one of the lead researchers on the project in France. Also, one of the few and the best center for hadrontherapy in the US is right here in Boston. It's unclear whether or not this therapy could help John, but it's certainly worth looking into.

I'm glad I decided to open the message.

2 comments:

OTRgirl said...

I hear you on the crafty junk mail. I hate wading through all of it.

I am glad you opened this one. Your telling of it made me laugh.

soralis said...

SPAM sucks! I wonder if they really get anyone to read that stuff anyway?

P.S. the halloween costumes are too cute!